


We Can't Leave Us Behind

by gansey_is_our_king



Category: Raven Cycle - Maggie Stiefvater
Genre: Adam and Ronan are cute?, Adam and Ronan really need to talk about their feelings, Also lots of swearing because Ronan is Ronan, Angst, Cabeswater is gone, Canon-Compliant, M/M, Ronan misses his mom, So much angst, Some graphic descriptions but not really anything worse than what's in the books, There is also kissing, They finally do, This is very Ronan-centric, Thus there are Raven King Spoilers, duh - Freeform, post trk
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-12
Updated: 2016-09-01
Packaged: 2018-08-08 05:53:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 14,486
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7745722
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gansey_is_our_king/pseuds/gansey_is_our_king
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Ronan struggles to find closure after the events of The Raven King.  His friends are there to help him through it.<br/></p>
            </blockquote>





	1. And I Am Feeling So Small

**Author's Note:**

> This is my first Ronan POV fan fiction and thus I am a little bit nervous. There is some questionable Latin--I had to use Google Translate so I hope it turned out okay. Also so much angst. I hope you all enjoy!
> 
> Story title from "Scars" by James Bay.  
> Chapter title from "Say Something" by A Great Big World.

In the dream the stairs creaked and groaned in protest underneath his boots as Ronan climbed to the second floor. Dust swirled around him—prickled sharp in his nose so that he had to stifle a sneeze in his shirt sleeve. He reached the door and reached out to test the brass knob in his hand. It turned. The rusted hinges squeaked when Ronan used his shoulder to heave the door open.

 

He stepped inside.

 

It was the same—but it was _not_ the same.

 

There was the old leather armchair and the pool table and the unmade bed. There were the books stacked around the walls and scattered across the floor. There was the miniature Henrietta made from cereal boxes and glue and paint.

 

It was the same—but the colours seemed muted and dull.

 

It was like Ronan looked at it all past a warped glass pane.

 

He shucked off his jacket and tossed it on the floor.

 

“Gansey?” he called.

 

His voice echoed in the space around him.

 

There was no answer.

 

The wind whistled inside the room almost like a song. The tired beams that supported the roof groaned as he stepped further inside. Ronan heard something crunch underneath his boot—and he lifted his foot up and looked down. He had stepped on some broken plant pot. Dirt trailed across the room to where the mint plant had been tipped off the desk. It spilled across the floor. The leaves were shrivelled and dead.

 

“Gansey? Hey—Dick?”

 

Ronan stalked over to the plant and reached down to pick it up—but the leaves crumbled to dust at his touch.

 

“Fuck.”

 

He tried to scoop the spilled dirt in his hands. It smelled like rot and death and he wrinkled his nose. The dirt writhed as he looked at it. There were worms in it.

 

No. Not worms.

 

There were _hornets_ in it.

 

Ronan startled back in disgust.

 

He tried to brush the earth from his hands—but the hornets crawled up his arms and shook the dirt from their fat striped bodies before they took off into the air to buzz around his head. Ronan swatted at them. He stumbled as his foot caught on a loose floorboard and then went down—landing hard on his side.

 

He groaned and then looked up.

 

Monmouth had _changed_ around him.

 

The enormous paned windows were cracked and broken and shards of glass glittered on the rotted floor. There were holes in the warped boards where Ronan could see down to the ground. The mattress was mauled like an animal had gone at it with sharp claws and the pool table had been tipped over on one side. The coloured balls had scattered in all directions. The books that Gansey had poured over for hours at a time were shredded and torn apart.

 

Ronan reached out and touched a loose page that had fluttered down near him.

 

It was spattered with red.

 

It was spattered with _blood_.

 

“Gansey!” he shouted.

 

The word was torn from his throat.

 

There was still no answer.

 

Ronan scrambled to his feet and then crept across the ruined apartment to the room that he used to sleep in. The floor groaned underneath his boots. His heart pounded in his ears. The door was shut but when he smashed his shoulder to the blistered wood it gave and fell open with a crash.  His mattress had been turned over. There was more fresh blood streaked all down the cracked window—and it glistened red and wet on the glass. His clothes were strewn across the floor. Black feathers drifted in the air all around Ronan like fat velvet snowflakes.

 

He felt his skin crawl and looked down at his arms.

 

No hornets.

 

It was all in his head.

 

Ronan checked the second bedroom and found that it had been upturned too.

 

Noah was not there. His gaze was drawn to a crumpled black shape in the corner.

 

It was a raven. It was Chainsaw. Her eyes glittered and she did not move at all.

 

“No.” Ronan dropped to his knees beside her. “No. Fuck. Come on.”

 

He touched her silken feathers.

 

“No. Please wake up.”

 

But she was dead. He could tell. He could feel it in his chest like ice.

 

Ronan tasted bile when he tried to swallow.  

 

Chainsaw was dead. Did that mean that Gansey was also—but he shook his head and then stumbled back to his feet. He could not think about that. He gathered Chainsaw up with as much care as he could manage while his hands shook. He hated how stiff and cold she was to the touch. He hated this.

 

He wanted out.

 

His boots thumped on the rotted floor as he went over to the kitchen.

 

He pushed open the door—which had been pushed to.

 

There was Gansey.

 

He was on the floor with blood on his green shirt and matted in his thick hair.

 

“Fuck. No. Fuck.”

 

Ronan wanted to vomit.

 

He set Chainsaw down on the table and then approached Gansey as his heart crashed inside his chest and hot tears burned behind his lids. His friend was motionless and sprawled on the floor with both arms stretched out near his head. His legs could have been broken—had to be broken to be bent at such an odd angle.

 

Thick black blood trickled from his left nostril.

 

His eyes were blank and dull.

 

Ronan felt his knees hit the floor. He felt the jolt in him.

 

“Wake up. Come on… please wake up. Fuck. Jesus Christ. Fuck. Wake up.”

 

He gasped the words out.

 

There was a sound like a buzz in his ears.

 

Ronan looked around—and then he turned back to Gansey in time to see a hornet crawl out from his left nostril. The black and yellow stripes across the thorax seemed to expand as the insect crawled over his cheek and then disappeared inside his ear.

 

“Fuck. Get out! Get the fuck out of him!” Ronan screamed.

 

The buzz became louder and louder until he had to cover his ears.

 

He curled up on the floor and shuddered as black and yellow striped bodies flicked past him and a terrible stale smell filled his nose. Gansey sprawled still and helpless and _dead_ beside him as hornets crawled from his eyes and ears and mouth and took to the dust thick air.

 

“Ronan!”

 

The voice came from somewhere too far for him to reach.

 

Ronan felt the hornets land on his arms and neck and he screamed.  He could taste blood. He could taste his own death.

 

“Ronan! Come on—wake up! Fucking—”

 

The floor buckled underneath him with a sound like a gunshot and then he fell down inside black space. He snatched at thin air. The hornets buzzed all around him and landed on him and Ronan writhed as his skin burned like it was on fire.

 

 

 

“Ronan! Ronan—for fuck sake! Wake up!” Declan shouted at him. Ronan did wake up. He gasped and then peeled open his eyes. The lids were crusted over with sleep. He was on his back in his bed and the shirt and boxers he had put on before he went to sleep were soaked with a cold sweat.  There were no hornets. No blood.

 

Instead his older brother stood over his mattress with a stricken look on his face.

 

Ronan looked down at his hands.

 

It struck him at once that he could move—which meant that it had been a normal dream. Well. It had been a normal _nightmare_. It had been a horrible normal nightmare. His skin was pale. The veins across his hands stood out as adrenaline continued to pound inside him.

 

“What?” he snapped at Declan.

 

He tried to sound irritable and cold—but his voice cracked.

 

Declan stepped back from the bed a little and then cleared his throat.

 

“You were yelling in your sleep. I just… I thought that maybe…”

 

Ronan glared at him. “It was just a fucking _dream_.”

 

“I know that. I know.” Declan rubbed a hand across his neck. “Time to get up.”

 

Ronan jerked the blanket up over his head. “Yeah. Sure. Fuck off.”

 

Declan did not fuck off. He just stood there.

 

Ronan breathed in the stale air underneath the blanket and waited.  He blinked back the hot tears that welled behind his lids.

 

“Ronan.”

 

“Get the fuck out.”

 

“Come on. The funeral—”

 

Declan stopped then. He scuffed his feet on the floor and sighed.

 

Somewhere outside the open window a raven shrieked at the wind.

 

“Do you want breakfast before the funeral?” Declan clarified.

 

His voice was thin and tired.

 

Ronan swallowed the lump in his throat.

 

“Yeah. But I wanna take a shower first.”

 

He heard Declan sigh once more—this time in relief that the argument was over for now. Then his brother crossed the room to the door and went out. He walked down the hall and took the stairs to the kitchen. The moment he was gone Ronan shoved back the blankets and sat up in bed. He looked over to the open window in time to see a raven swoop down and land with a clatter on the sill. Chainsaw croaked at him and then flapped inside to peck at a loose thread in the blanket that was draped across his knees.

 

Ronan reached out and stroked her head.

 

The feathers slipped underneath his skin.

 

His hand shook as she snapped her beak in irritable affection.

 

She was _alive_. She was _here_.

 

It had been a dream.

 

 

 

Declan and Matthew took a separate car to the funeral. Ronan took the BMW. He knew that Declan had wanted them to arrive at the same time and in the same vehicle—but he did not think that could not bear to sit in such a small space with them for the half hour drive to Henrietta.

 

Declan frowned at him from his own car as Ronan tore out.

 

He rammed the gas pedal to the floor and gripped the leather wheel. Opal snuffled in the back where she was curled beside Chainsaw. Declan had not seemed too eager about that either. He had not said it out loud—but Ronan could guess what his brother thought without much effort.

 

His wild dreams had no place at a funeral for their mother.

 

Ronan could taste the irony of that in his mouth as he drove.

 

“Kerah?” Opal whispered as the BMW jolted over a patch in the road.

 

Ronan punched on the stereo and drowned his soul in music.

 

He reached the church well before Declan did—and slammed his door hard behind him before he went around to let Opal out from the back. Chainsaw shrieked and flapped past them both to circle the church spire before she landed back on the gravel and started to peck around for insects.

 

Ronan glanced over at the other car that sat in the lot.

 

It was old and rusted and dented in several places.

 

There was bird shit streaked down the front windshield.

 

His chest ached.

 

Opal pressed close to his side. She reached up and took his hand.  “Kerah?” she croaked—half bird and half girl with her little hooves.

 

Ronan realized then that he had not remembered to hide them in boots.

 

She still wore the muddied skullcap over her fine blond hair too.

 

He tugged on it. “Take that off before the—before we go inside.”

 

He could not quite form the word _funeral_ with his mouth.  

 

Not now. Not yet.

 

Declan rumbled down the road a minute later and pulled his car in beside the BMW to park. Matthew climbed out first. He ran over and hugged Ronan tight around the waist at once like it had been more than half an hour since breakfast. Ronan was not sure that his little brother understood what had happened to their mother. He was not sure that Matthew _could_ understand it—another possible flaw in his dream mind that Ronan had not realized until this moment.

 

Matthew pulled a small stick from his pocket and held it out for Opal.

 

She took it and put the end in her mouth.

 

Declan stomped over and scowled at them all.

 

“Well. This is a sorry mess.”

 

Ronan glared at the gravel between his shoes.

 

He could feel the sweat that had gathered underneath his armpits in the heat.

 

He hated this suit. He hated the dust on his shoes. He hated the sun in his eyes.

 

He just _hated_.

 

Opal leaned closer to him and chewed on her stick.  Chainsaw hopped over and searched for food between his feet.  Declan and Matthew were both silent.

 

Ronan heard the familiar tired rumble before he saw the Camaro. Then the engine shuddered and died across the lot and a door slammed shut and Gansey was there and Blue was with him. She was dressed in a black skirt and top that she must have made from scrap fabric and her hair stuck out from her pins. Gansey wore his usual neat suit and a black tie.

 

Blue threw both arms around Ronan before he could stop her.  He had to bend over quite a lot to make it work.

 

She was warm and small and he could feel her breath on his collarbone.

 

Ronan frowned at her. “Better not start crying on me.”

 

Blue stepped back. She opened her mouth but then stopped and closed it.

 

Gansey came to stand beside her.

 

“Declan.”

 

“Dick. Hi. Thanks for…” Declan hesitated. His mouth twisted.

 

Gansey nodded at him and then turned to look at Ronan. His expression was polite and mournful but his eyes said _tell me that you are okay_ and Ronan had to turn away before he broke.

 

There was a lump stuck in his throat.

 

Opal blinked up at him and clutched his hand.

 

Ronan wanted to disappear. He wanted to erase this time from existence.

 

His mother was dead.

 

He had seen her in Cabeswater—all blood and white hair and gore.

 

That was not what he _wanted_ to remember about her but he could not forget it.

 

He was jolted back to the heat and the sun when another door slammed. Ronan heard loose gravel crunch underneath shoes and then looked around. Gansey and Blue shifted back a little so that Adam could join their silent huddle. His hair was combed neat and his freckles stood out sharp in the cool pale sun. He also wore a suit and it looked better on him than it should.

 

Ronan did not un-think it.

 

Opal released his hand to run at Adam instead.

 

She leapt at him and he caught her and scooped her up.

 

“Hey there.”

 

He said it to Ronan even as he looked at Opal. His voice was low.

 

Ronan felt a little thrill in him when his Henrietta accent extended the vowels.  He wanted to run at Adam too and hold him and have Adam hold him back. He wanted to feel his breath brush across his cheek. He wanted to inhale his smell and kiss him on the mouth—but there was still the funeral and Declan and Matthew who stood and watched him.  Instead he swallowed and let out his breath.

 

“Parrish.”

 

The familiar name rolled out and shattered the tension between them even if his voice did sound a little bit odd. Adam caught his gaze for a second before he adjusted Opal in his arms. Chainsaw flapped over and pecked at his shoelaces.

 

Ronan wondered if the others noticed it—the careful attention that his dreams paid to the person he ached for all over.

 

He wondered if he even cared.

 

“Should we head inside now?” Gansey suggested.

 

He used his Richard Campbell Gansey III voice and Ronan wanted to scream.

 

Instead he jerked his head at the church.

 

“Yeah. Come on.”

 

He led them all inside and sat down in the usual pew despite the fact that this was a private funeral service and no one else was there. Declan and Matthew slid in beside him. Gansey went around to sit on his left—but then at the last moment he scooted back over to leave the space for Adam instead and Blue took the spot on his other side.

 

Ronan stared ahead at the crucifix that was attached to the wall behind the altar.

 

His throat closed off and his heart beat fast and hard inside his chest.

 

_Mom. I miss you. I miss you so much. Come back._

 

_It was my fault._

 

He pressed his side closer to Adam—and the other boy did not move away.

 

Ronan swallowed and felt the heat seep between them.

 

_This is my fault. I thought I could keep you safe… but you died because of me._

 

_I can never undo this._

 

_I can never have you back._

 

Beside him Adam sighed. It was a low sound.

 

Ronan felt his shoulder move up and down.

 

His chest ached. Molten heat gathered behind his lids.

 

He ducked his head and tried to remember how to breathe.

 

 

 

His mother had been undone in Cabeswater—but Declan still paid for a small black box to be made and that afternoon the three brothers buried it next to a fresh headstone behind the church. There were no ashes inside it—but no one else had to know that. The priest that presided over the funeral had no idea and neither did the men who came to fill in the hole once the box had been placed inside.

 

Ronan did not think that Declan had told Matthew about it either.

 

It was yet another secret held between the two oldest Lynch brothers.

 

The hot sun beat down on his neck and Ronan stared at the fresh dirt mound and the headstone beside it. He could read the name etched there—but his mind refused to comprehend it even after a week had passed since it had happened. Dead leaves drifted across the ground and scattered around his shoes.

 

“I have to head back home.”

 

Ronan startled when Declan slammed a hand on his shoulder.

 

“Back to The Barns?” he asked—even though he knew the answer.

 

“No.” Declan shook his head a little. “To D.C. I have work there.”

 

“So what about Matthew?”

 

“I want to take him with me until it settles down here a little.”

 

Ronan nodded. He tried to swallow but it hurt.

 

Declan cleared his throat. His hand was warm and firm.

 

“You can come too—if you want. Just for a while.”

 

Ronan smirked. He glanced back over his shoulder to where Opal crouched in the grass behind the church. Her mouth was dark with mud and her hooves were caked with dirt and grass. Chainsaw flapped all around her head and shrieked.

 

He sighed.

 

"I think that I need to be here.”

 

Declan frowned but then nodded. His mouth was thin.

 

“Yeah. I get that.” He clapped Ronan on the shoulder before he turned and crossed the lot to where he had parked his car. Matthew hung out the window. Ronan huffed out his next breath and then shouted at Opal to get her attention as he stomped after his older brother.

 

He caught Matthew in his arms and held him for a moment.

 

“Keep outta trouble.”

 

“I will.”

 

“Listen to Declan. Sometimes.”

 

He cracked a grin that hurt a little bit. Matthew tried to match it.

 

“I will.”

 

Declan climbed in on the other side and honked the horn to get their attention.

 

“Matthew. Come on. Time to leave.”

 

Ronan stepped back and watched as Declan put the car in gear. There was a lump in his throat. Matthew slipped inside the open window and rolled it up. He waved at Ronan behind the glass. Ronan waved back at him. Dust rose from underneath the tires and Chainsaw let out another shriek that Opal imitated from where she had come to stand beside Ronan and then the car was on the road. Ronan craned his neck to see the familiar blond curls and the hand still raised in a wave as Declan turned the corner.

 

The car disappeared.

 

He sighed low and quiet and tucked his hands in his suit pockets.

 

The lot was deserted all around him. Gansey had taken Blue back to 300 Fox Way after the funeral. Ronan jerked his head at Chainsaw and she came to land on his shoulder. She was warm and familiar. He closed his eyes for a second when her wing brushed his cheek. Opal reached up and took his hand.

 

“Kerah?” she said.

 

Ronan let his gaze drift to the small streaked window above the church office.  Adam was up there—as far as he could tell. His car was still in the lot.

 

He went in the side door and climbed the stairs to the second floor.

 

He knocked.

 

Adam answered so fast that Ronan guessed he had been expected.

 

“Parrish.”

 

“Lynch. That took you long enough.”

 

“Do you have to work?” Ronan said as he stepped inside the cramped apartment and ducked his head to avoid the low beam near the desk. Opal trotted after him and stared around with her enormous dark eyes. Chainsaw fluttered down to peck at the threadbare blanket across the mattress on the floor.

 

Adam reached up to rub a hand across his neck.

 

“Uh. No.”

 

He had exchanged his suit for jeans and a shirt with the sleeves rolled back.

 

Ronan could see the freckles scattered across his bare arms.

 

His heart skipped in his chest and he scrambled to reel in his emotions.

 

He ached inside.

 

Adam sat down at his desk with a sigh.

 

“What about Declan?” he said. “Did he take Matthew back to The Barns?”

 

Ronan shook his head. “D.C. He said that he had work.” He was not sure that he was disappointed. He would miss Matthew of course—but he knew that he got on with Declan much better when his older brother was further away. It just hurt to think that he would have to go back to The Barns alone.

 

_Not alone. You have Opal. You have Chainsaw._

 

But at the moment neither felt like much more than insubstantial dreams to him.

 

“What about you?” Adam said. “Are you okay?”

 

His drawl slipped out—which meant that he was tired.  He _looked_ tired.

 

Ronan lifted one shoulder. “Yeah. Sure. I mean…” He hesitated. The lump was back in his throat. His eyes were hot. He strode across the room and dropped down on his knees beside Adam and then laid his head in his lap. Adam made a soft startled noise before he reached over and placed a hand on his neck. His touch was warm but Ronan shivered as his thumb pushed down underneath his shirt collar.

 

“It was my fault.”

 

The words slipped out before he could swallow them down.

 

He squeezed his eyes shut and pressed his cheek to faded warm denim.

 

Adam ran a hand over his shaved head.  “It was _not_ your fault. I was there. I saw her… and I saw what the demon did.”

 

“But it was my fault that she was in Cabeswater. I _took_ her there.”

 

“Ronan…”

 

But then Adam hesitated. The hand on his scalp was hot and gentle.

 

Ronan wanted to scream.  He felt hot tears leak out and roll down his face. Adam did not fumble or act awkward about it—instead he wiped the tears away with his thumb and then pushed Ronan back to meet his gaze. His cheeks were a little flushed. There was a familiar crease across his forehead that appeared whenever he was worried about school or work or Cabeswater.

 

Ronan rubbed his jacket sleeve across his face.

 

“Come back to The Barns with me?” he muttered.

 

His voice lacked the usual careless growl that he preferred but it seemed like that was too much effort at the moment—and also this was _Adam_. If anyone could have guessed that it was all a front it was Adam Parrish.

 

There was a pause.

 

Ronan felt he heat in his face and he wished that he had not said it.  He wanted to take it back.

 

But then Adam nodded and stood up. “Yeah. Sure. I can come.”

 

Ronan knew that this was a stretch for him. Adam had school and work to do and he needed to sleep—but he pulled on a faded jacket over his shirt without comment and then clucked at Chainsaw so that she flapped up to land on his shoulder. Ronan smirked. He beckoned to Opal and then pushed her out to the narrow hall ahead of them while Adam took his key from the hook beside the door.

 

He locked it behind him and then turned to Ronan.  “I can follow behind you in my car.”

“Leave it here.”

 

“I need it to drive to school tomorrow.”

 

Ronan hesitated.

 

He realized that the explanation meant that Adam intended to sleep over at The Barns and his heart stuttered in his chest for a moment before it started to pound even faster and harder than before. Beside him Opal pulled on his hand—impatient to be outside in the warm afternoon sun or impatient to be back at The Barns before dark or perhaps just impatient in general.

It was a trait that she had learned from him.

 

Ronan let her pull him down the stairs.  He turned back to look up at Adam once he had reached the bottom step.  He smirked a little.

 

“Leave it here. You can take the BMW.”

 

 

The sun dipped down behind the distant barns and caused shadows to stretch out across the curved gravel drive. The bare trees reached up for the black and the stars that glimmered above and dreamed fireflies darted and danced around the back porch. The air turned cold in the dark.

 

Ronan stood in the grass behind the farmhouse.

 

The cold blades pricked at his bare feet. He had his hands tucked in his pockets and his head tipped back. His warm breath misted next to his mouth. He was cold but he did not want to move. He could hear the normal distant hush that was a fall breeze in the skeletal tree branches—but past that he could also hear his mother as she laughed and his father when he whispered a anecdote on the couch with one arm hooked around Ronan and the other braced back behind his head.

 

His chest ached with the loss.

 

The door creaked open and then thudded shut.

 

Ronan turned back to see that Adam stood next to the house.

 

He stuck his hands in his pockets too—a careful imitation.

 

“Opal wants to see you.”

 

Ronan sighed out his breath.

 

The fireflies dipped closer to Adam and lit his tan face in the dark. He smiled a little bit and then reached out to catch one on his thumb. It landed there. It was not quite an insect. It was not quite real—except that it _was_ real because Ronan had dreamed it and then taken it from his head when he woke up. He watched Adam and Adam watched the little golden dream as it crawled across his knuckle and down to his open palm. He turned his hand over.

 

Ronan wanted to be next to him.

 

He started to walk back to the house and then stopped.

 

His heart stuttered inside his chest.

 

Adam waited until the dream insect had crept up his arm and lifted off near his shoulder before he looked back at Ronan—and this time his face was lit and open. His gaze was odd and wild behind his fair lashes.

 

“What does Opal want?” Ronan said.

 

Adam seemed to take a moment to remember what he had said before.

 

He scuffed his sneaker on the grass. “She said… uh… she said that you need to go in and say goodnight to her before she goes to bed. That you can keep the nightmares away when she sleeps.” He did not move to pull open the back door.

 

Ronan stared at him and ached.

 

He wanted… he was not sure what he wanted.  He just knew that it hurt.

 

Adam sighed and then crossed the damp grass and stopped when he stood next to Ronan. He had to tilt his head up a little bit to meet his gaze because Ronan was taller than him. He was close. Ronan could feel his breath on his neck. He could count the freckles across his nose. His hair had become tousled from all the times that he had pushed it back from his face at dinner.

 

He did not move.

 

Adam reached up and rubbed his hand across his neck.

 

“Is this okay?” he muttered—and his Henrietta drawl pulled the words out.

 

“Is what okay?” Ronan said.

 

Adam took another step and then kissed him.

 

Ronan shattered even as his bare feet remained rooted in the grass. He broke apart and then his pieces drifted in the cool air with the fireflies. Adam had one hand planted flat on his chest and the other around his waist. He used that one to pull Ronan a little bit closer to him. His thumb brushed the cool bare skin between shirt and waistband and Ronan shivered at the contact.

 

He shattered over and over as he stood there in the grass and kissed Adam Parrish.

 

It was a sudden crash that startled them both apart.

 

Adam jerked around while Ronan craned to look over his shoulder. In the lamp next to the back door he could see that it was Opal. She pulled at her skullcap as she glared at them—impatient and irritable and unabashed.

 

“Kerah!” she wailed. “Placere custodire ab sequuntur somnia!”

 

_Please keep the nightmares away._

 

Ronan reached up and ran a hand across his shaved head.

 

“Fine. Get inside.”

 

She glared at him and then waited until he started back to the house before she wrenched open the door and let it thud shut behind her. Ronan trailed after her down the hall and up the stairs to the second floor. He found her in the bedroom where Declan used to sleep. She had pulled the blankets and pillows from the mattress and made a nest on the floor underneath the window instead. The curtains were pushed back to let the pale moon shine inside and she had lined up several stones and even more chewed sticks in a neat row on the sill.

 

Ronan glared at her. “What about the bed?”

 

She matched his expression and then borrowed deep inside the blankets.

 

Ronan sighed but then leaned down to kiss her forehead. He snatched at the skullcap before she could stop him and smoothed her fine blond hair back. He murmured some Latin in her ear.  “Hoc est, in realem mundi. Non est hic monstra.”

 

_This is the real world. There are no monsters here._

 

The floor creaked outside the room.

 

Ronan guessed that Adam had come upstairs too. He met him back in the hall once Opal had settled down and permitted Ronan to turn out the lamp on the little table next to the bed. He eased the door shut behind him and then looked at Adam. He had become pale and washed out in the dark.

 

He rubbed his hand across his neck and Ronan watched his thumb curve around the smooth white skin.

 

His stomach clenched. His heart beat fast and hard in his chest.

 

He huffed out his breath.

 

“Parrish.”

 

Adam smiled for a half second and then tilted his head down the hall.

 

“You should sleep.”

 

“No.” Ronan said it too quick. He felt the heat rise in his face.

 

Adam arched an eyebrow at him. Then he lifted one shoulder. “Fine. But I have to sleep if I want to focus in school. So you can come with me if you want to… or you can stand out here until I have to leave tomorrow.”

 

There were other options—of course there were. Ronan could watch television or explore the dark barns. He could stand on the porch and wait for the sun to come back up over the trees. He could take the BMW for a late drive.

 

But he did not want to do those things and Adam could tell.

 

Instead Ronan trailed down the hall behind him and watched as Adam pushed open the door to his room. He hesitated there for a moment before he pulled his shirt over his head. He folded it up and put it on the dresser and then he flipped back the blankets. He crawled underneath them.

 

Ronan tried to control his rapid heart rate.

 

He wondered if he dared to climb in bed with Adam Parrish. Then he _did_ climb in bed and Adam moved over a little to leave room for him on the mattress. The blankets scratched at his bare arms and neck as Ronan tried to share them. He had never had to do that before. He had never had to lie still in a small warm space and listen to Adam breath next to him—not like this.

 

Not this close and real.

 

“Ronan?” Adam whispered.

 

“What?” Ronan whispered back.

 

He let his exhaustion shave the usual sharp curl from his voice.

 

There was a pause. Ronan listened as Adam breathed.

 

“If you dream—can you still bring something back with you?” he asked finally.

 

Ronan rolled over to lie on his back. He stared up at the shadows.

 

“I think so. Cabeswater is gone but I could take stuff out of my dreams before I manifested it… so I guess… yeah. I can. I haven’t exactly tried to bring anything back since we did the… since Gansey… you know…”

 

But he had to stop there because his voice broke and his chest ached.

 

Adam shifted over to peer at him in the dark. Ronan felt his breath on his cheek.

 

“I just wanted to say that if—well if you do fall asleep and you dream and you want to bring something back with you—you can do that. I would be okay with it. I also promise not to freak out if I wake up and something else is in bed with us.”

 

Ronan felt the heat in his face flush down his neck and chest.

 

“Oh. Uh. Okay.”

 

“Okay.” Adam rolled over to his other side. “Goodnight.”

 

Ronan swallowed the lump in his throat. “Yeah. Goodnight.”

 

He lay there for a while on his back and stared at the wooden beams stretched above his head and the shadows that danced across them and the fireflies that had drifted around the house to dip and spiral outside the bedroom window.

 

Adam fell asleep next to him.

 

Ronan heard his breathes even out when he did.  He closed his eyes.


	2. In Sleep

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ronan and Adam discuss Cabeswater after spending the night at The Barns. Gansey and Blue make a quick appearance.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello! So I've decided to make this a chaptered fic instead of one with multiple parts. I hope that doesn't confuse everyone. Chapter 2 has even more Pynch and angst than Chapter 1. Hope you all enjoy!

Ronan did not sleep—and so he did not dream. Instead he drifted inside the quiet dark space that existed between consciousness and unconsciousness as the moon tracked across the velvet black outside his bedroom window. Adam had passed out beside him almost at once and did stir at all until the sun started to peek up over the distant trees. It bled gold across his tan face and over his bare shoulder—visible to Ronan because the blanket had slipped down a little.

  
His heart crashed in his chest.

  
His palms were hot and damp with a nervous sweat that he wiped on the sheets.

  
Then the blanket shifted a bit more as Adam rolled over to look at him. His lashes were crusted with dried sleep and his lids were a little swollen—but at least the dark bruises that had been present underneath his eyes after the funeral seemed to have faded.

  
Ronan tried not to look too hard at his bare jutted collar bone.

  
The tan skin around it was marked with freckles that he wanted to trace with his hands.

  
“Did you sleep?” Adam whispered. There was not much space between them on the twin mattress and his breath smelled stale. Ronan was not sure that he cared.

  
He shook his head. “Did you sleep?” he said.

  
He knew the answer but he still asked.

  
Adam reached up one hand to rub at his eyes. “Yeah. I… um… I think so.” It seemed to strike him then that he was in bed with Ronan and that the blankets were rumpled around them both and that he was close to Ronan. His breath hitched and his face turned a delicate pink shade that Ronan wanted to remember forever.

  
He scrambled to store the moment in his mind for later—for his dreams.

  
“What?” Adam said.

  
“What?” Ronan echoed.

  
“You look… never mind. I need to piss.” Adam shoved the blankets aside and then stood up. His back was bleached pale and smooth in the sun that streamed across the room and Ronan tried not to look—but at the same time he had to look because this was Adam Parrish.

  
There was a crease imprinted on his other bare shoulder from a fold in the sheet. Then he reached up with one hand to push his hair back and all Ronan wanted to do was stretch out across the space between them and grab his wrist. He wanted to pull Adam back underneath the blankets and then kiss him on the mouth and curl up there with him for an undetermined time.  
He wanted the push the world and the grief and the ache out and inhale Adam.

  
It did not happen.

  
Instead he watched Adam shuffle over to the door and ease it open. He listened to the floorboards creak underneath bare feet as Adam crept down the hall to the bathroom and went inside. Then he heard the tap run. The toilet flushed a minute later.   
Ronan rolled over to lie on his back and tucked one hand behind his head. The sheets around him smelled like Adam—like gasoline and sweat and that cheap deodorant he used.

  
Ronan breathed. He tilted his face to the side and then let his lids slip shut so that the sun could not poke past them.

  
The door creaked open.

  
“Kerah?”

  
The mattress dipped as Opal climbed on beside him.

  
Ronan cracked one eye and glared at her. “What is that?” he snapped when he saw that she had a odd black object in her mouth. Opal spat it out in her hand and then held it out for him to examine. It was a plastic chess piece. The black queen. Ronan guessed that it had come from the set Declan kept in his bedroom. There was spit all over it and he did not want to touch it. He shoved her hand aside.

  
“Put that the fuck back. No. Wait—I want you to wash it first and then put it back. I can make you breakfast.”

  
Until that moment Ronan had not wanted to think about food or the kitchen—he did not want to eat. The last week before the funeral he had shoved cold meals in his mouth whenever Declan made him and that was about it. But as he slipped from the bed and pulled a black hoodie on over his wrinkled shirt he realized that Adam would need to eat before he went to school. Then he realized that Adam had school and his chest clenched a little bit.

  
It was stupid—but until that moment he had had it in his head that Adam would curl up on the couch with him all afternoon while Opal found her own entertainment outside. Ronan still wanted that to happen.

  
He hated that he had let the hope trickle in.

  
Opal clomped ahead out to the hall and then down the stairs to the kitchen with her skull cap pulled down low over her impossible blond hair. Ronan paused next to the bathroom door. It was closed—but no sound came from the other side. He was sure that Adam was still in there. He would have come back to the bedroom for his shirt before he wandered around the house alone.

  
Ronan hesitated and then sucked in a sharp breath.

  
He rapped his knuckles on the door.

  
“Parrish?”

  
There was silence. Then Adam spoke from inside the bathroom.

  
“What?”

  
His voice was thick. It sounded like he had a cold.

  
Ronan reached out and tested the handle. The door was locked.

  
“I was gonna make Opal breakfast—what do you want?”

  
His tried to school his voice. It did not work. His breath hitched in his throat.

  
Adam did not answer.

  
“Parrish?” Ronan repeated. “What are you—fuck—can you let me in there?”

  
If he had been smart he would have come up with a lie.

  
He would have told Adam that he had to take a piss or brush his teeth.

  
Instead the truth burst out and his heart thumped in his chest and his palms sweated.

  
Ronan tried to turn the door handle a second time—but it still did not twist in his grip.

  
He startled when hooves thudded on the floor down the hall and then Opal appeared. She had the chess piece back in her mouth—the end stuck out past her puckered lips and it almost looked like a soother for a toddler.

  
“Kerah!” she wailed.

  
Ronan was not sure if she felt his own distress or if she wanted his attention.

  
It did not matter—because a moment later the latch on the bathroom door scraped back and then the door was pulled open. Adam peered out at them both. His face was pale and his lashes were wet. His lids were rimmed with red. The white around his irises had become bloodshot in the time that he had disappeared inside the bathroom. Ronan noticed the streaks on his face too and his stomach clenched.

  
“What the fuck happened in there?” he snapped at Adam—too scared for him to be concerned about tact at the moment.   
Adam ducked his head. “Sorry. I was… I needed a minute.”

  
His voice still did not sound quite normal. It was raw and small and Ronan heard his accent roll out—either because he was too distressed to stop it or because he did not care. He took a breath. He took another. He wanted to pull Adam close and hold him but his hands shook and his heart pounded in his chest.

  
Opal scrambled over and pushed open the bathroom door.

  
Her arms twisted around Adam.

  
Shame broke over Ronan. He watched as Adam rubbed a hand across his face and then crouched down so that he was level with Opal. He tucked some blond hair back inside her skull cap and smiled at her. It did not look quite real.

  
“Hey there.”

  
Opal reached out and touched his cheek.

  
Her index finger pressed over a faint tear mark.

  
Adam sighed. Then he stood and pulled Opal up in his arms. She hooked her hooves around his waist and rested her little head on his shoulder. From the outside it looked like Adam wanted to comfort her—but Ronan could tell it was the opposite. Opal let Adam take her down the stairs while Ronan trailed behind them. In the kitchen he slammed cupboard doors and crashed pots as Adam turned on the coffee machine. Opal hovered near him—so close that Adam turned and tripped over her several times. But he never complained. He never glared at her. His expression was tired and pensive.

  
Ronan dreaded the moment that he would have to climb in the BMW and drive back to Henrietta.

  
He took as long as he dared to make breakfast—eggs and bacon and almost black toast with too much butter—and then he slumped in a seat at the table to watch Adam and Opal eat it. Adam cast him a careful look over his plate like he wanted to tell Ronan to have some food too—but in the end he lifted one shoulder and then turned back to his toast.

  
The forks and knives clinked on the plates and Ronan simmered in his chair.

  
Adam pressed his thumb to the table to pick up some scattered crumbs.

  
Opal hopped down and darted down the hall.

  
The silence that descended once she had disappeared pressed in on them.

  
Ronan ducked his head to glare at his torn jeans. “You could stay.” He muttered the words but he could tell that Adam heard them. He did not answer. Instead he stood up and carried his plate over to the sink. He put on the tap. Hot water splashed out and speckled across his tan arms and bare chest.

  
Ronan tried not to look. But it was hard.

  
“I miss Cabeswater.”

  
Adam spoke above the water that continued to sputter from the tap.

  
His voice was flat and quiet.

  
Ronan pushed his chair back and went over to him. He opened his mouth but then closed it. He had no idea what Adam expected to hear from him. He wanted to put his arms around him but he was not sure that he was allowed—not when Adam did not have a shirt on and his hands were stuck in the sink.

  
He breathed. His heart pounded too fast and hard.

  
Then Adam turned and leaned his head on his chest. Hair tickled at his neck. His damp hands went around Ronan to link at his back and he let out a quiet sigh. Ronan could feel the heat from his bare skin as it seeped underneath the hoodie he had pulled on earlier. He could feel the cool dish water as it dripped down his waist.

  
“Parrish.”

  
Adam was quiet. His eyes were closed and his face was complicated.

  
Ronan tried to swallow the lump in his throat.

  
“Adam.”

  
He heard another quiet sigh. Adam pressed his face to his neck. “I was in the bathroom and I heard a… um… I heard a sound. I thought it was in my deaf ear and that made me think about it. I mean… about Cabeswater. I miss it. I miss… the way it made me feel safe and how I dreamed about it and…” Adam stopped there. His breathes came sharp and shallow. Ronan could feel him tremble as he stood next to the sink.

  
He reached over with one hand and cut the water. It was almost up to the rim.

  
“I miss it too.”

  
“I know.  Fuck.”

  
Adam sounded agonized.

  
Ronan clutched at him. His bare skin was hot and smooth.

  
It was hard to think about more than that but he reeled his mind back in.

  
“Come and see it with me?”

  
“What?” Adam said.

  
“Not it. I guess. But come with me and see the place where it was. Before.”

  
He dared to run a hand up his back. His thumb skimmed over fevered skin.

  
Adam shivered. “I have school. But… maybe after that?”

  
He sounded sorry that it could not be sooner and Ronan did not feel bitter.

  
He nodded. “Yeah. Sure. Maybe after that.”

  
There was a crash and then a shriek from the next room.

  
Adam pushed him back. “What… um… do you think you should check on that?”

  
Ronan hooked his arms around his neck. “No.”

  
Adam gave him a fractious smile but then leaned in and kissed him. His mouth was warm and—a little thrill flared inside Ronan—familiar and his hands slipped up to grip Ronan around the waist. Ronan threaded one hand in his mussed hair and the other skimmed over to trace the freckles that were dappled across his bare shoulder.

  
This was happiness—and Ronan had not been sure that he even could feel that after what had happened with his mom and Cabeswater and Glendower—but in this moment he did feel it and it seemed more like magic than his impossible dreams.

  
Adam clutched at him. Ronan felt him shudder and then he was pressed to the counter and Adam was pressed to him and his heart pounded in his chest. He could taste Adam and he wanted to taste him forever. He could feel his pulse flutter underneath his throat.

  
It ended when Adam placed a hand on his chest and pushed back.

  
Ronan panted. His face was hot and he was sure that Adam could tell.

  
“I have to… school…” Adah muttered. 

  
“Yeah.”

  
Adam glanced over Ronan at the sink but Ronan shook his head. “I can do that. You can get dressed and… do you wanna take a shower?”

  
“Um. Maybe.”

  
“Yeah. Sure. Go ahead.”

  
Adam smiled at him. “Thanks.” He leaned over and kissed Ronan one more time on the mouth. It lasted about a second. Ronan still found that his breath was snatched from him as Adam reached up to tuck some hair behind one ear and then went across the kitchen.

  
He slipped out to the hall.

  
His back and neck were both flushed pink.

 

 

 

The Barns seemed enormous without Declan and Matthew there—and without Adam around to distract him Ronan found that it was even worse. He spent the afternoon out in the cattle barn. The cows were still and quiet and asleep all around him. He searched for and then fiddled with his old dreams—the unsuccessful attempts that he had created to wake the animals—and tried not to let his own exhaustion catch up with him.

  
Opal came with him.

  
She did not seem at all interested in his dreams—but moved around the barn from one cow to the next. She would climb up to lie on each one in turn and feel their heaved breaths underneath her hands and then breath with them while Chainsaw hopped across the floor near her and offered the occasional croak.

  
Ronan was so tired. He was frustrated because he was tired.

  
He abandoned the dreams too after a time and then scooped Opal down from the nearest cow and carried her back to the house. It was almost four. He checked his phone and saw that there were three missed calls—all from Gansey.

  
His stomach clenched.

  
He tossed the phone on the floor and then sprawled on the sofa with Opal tucked in beside him and Chainsaw perched on his knee to wait until Adam came back. If he even did come back. But he had the BMW so Ronan assumed he would. He tipped his head back and stared up at the beams and the dream lamps and the sun that streamed in from the hall.

  
The room smelled like boxwood and fur and the skull cap that Opal refused to remove.

  
It smelled like home.

  
His chest ached and his eyes burned.

  
His mind scrambled to clamp down on the emotions even as tears spilled down his face.

  
Ronan fell asleep with salt in his mouth.

 

 

 

He woke when the front door slammed shut. “Ronan?” Adam called down the front hall. Ronan heard his Henrietta accent extended the name and his pulse tapped at his throat and wrist at the sound. He loved it. Then he tried to move—to call back to Adam so that he would know where to look—and realized that he could not call back.

  
His voice stuck in his throat. He could not move at all.

  
His lids were glued shut not from crusted sleep but because he had dreamed.

  
Feathers brushed across his neck.

  
Ronan heard movement in the hall and then low voices. Not Adam. Gansey and Blue.

  
“Ronan?” Gansey called.

  
“Lynch?” Adam added.

  
Ronan had the sense that he was invisible. But then Opal climbed across his lap and stroked his face with her hands. “Kerah?” she whispered. Ronan tried to peel his lids apart once more and found that it worked this time. He blinked and shifted and then looked around in time to see Gansey appear in the room.

  
“Ronan.” He did not bother to clip back his irritation. “I texted you. I was worried.”

  
“Since when do I ever text you back?” Ronan snapped. He stood and realized as he did that leaves and stones and sticks littered the carpet and sofa all around him. In the dream he had searched for Cabeswater—he had grasped at the charred remains and stumbled in thick white mist while water trickled in the middle distance.

  
The air in the room was scented with moss and damp earth.

  
“Oh.”

  
Adam and Blue had joined Gansey. Ronan was aware that their eyes were on him and he shifted in discomfort. Chainsaw flapped down to perch on his shoulder. She croaked in his ear and her feathers brushed across his neck.

  
“What happened?” Adam drawled. 

  
Blue leaned over to pick up a dried leaf from the carpet. It crumbled in her hand. “Did this come from Cabeswater?” she whispered—and she sounded so hopeful that it hurt Ronan.

  
He shook his head.

  
Blue wilted. Beside her Adam sighed and rubbed a hand across his neck.

  
Ronan looked over at Gansey—and saw that his expression had softened a little bit.

  
He swallowed the lump in his throat. “I was gonna take Parrish there after school. To the place where it was before we… before what happened with Glendower.” He could not say before Gansey died because it hurt too much even when Gansey stood across the room from him. Even when he looked normal and real and alive.

  
Blue traded a glance with Adam. “Can we…?”

  
Ronan brushed leaves from his ripped jeans. “Yeah. You can come. Bring Cheng too.”

  
He was sure that Adam would be fine with this—and sure enough when he looked over at him Adam gave the smallest nod. Ronan snatched at Opal while Gansey sent Henry a text to ask when and where he could be picked up and then Blue took his free hand and Adam waited in the hall until Ronan had come up beside him.

  
He reached out and touched his wrist.

  
“Hey.  Are you okay?” he said.

  
Ronan swallowed. He could not quite nod his head. He guessed that Adam had noticed the tear streaks on his face—even if the stains were hours old. “I missed you.” His heart crashed inside his chest as he admitted it. Adam looked surprised. Then he looked a little bit pleased. He moved his hand up and Ronan let him press a thumb to his neck where his pulse fluttered underneath the skin.

  
Adam closed his eyes. Then he opened them.

  
“I think we need to talk about this.”

  
“What?” Ronan said.

  
“This. Us. I can come back here with you after Cabeswater and we can… figure it out.”

  
Adam hesitated.

Ronan was not sure that he wanted to talk but he could tell that Adam needed to. He opened his mouth—but at that moment Blue poked her head around the corner. Adam started the pull his hand back. Then he stopped. His touch was warm. Ronan could feel the heat in his face and he tried to school his expression a second too late.

  
Blue smirked at them both—at their closeness.

  
“Come on you guys. I have to work later.”

  
She disappeared.

  
“Kerah?” Opal said. It could have been a question. It could have been a moan.

  
Ronan pulled on her hand. “Brat. Come on.”

  
He led her down the hall with Adam behind him. Gansey and Blue had come to The Barns in the Camaro and Ronan slid in behind the driver seat while Gansey coaxed the engine to start with a choked rumble. Blue climbed in beside him and Adam joined Ronan in the back with Opal and Chainsaw. It was cramped—but Ronan did not mind. Not when cramped meant that he had an excuse to press his hip close to Adam and hook one arm around his shoulder. Not when cramped meant that Adam let him do all that and then cast him a quiet glance from underneath his pale lashes. His mouth quirked.

  
“Kerah!” Chainsaw shrieked.

  
Adam reached over to stroke her feathers and calm her.

  
“Kerah!” Opal echoed—and then in Latin she added: “Ubi enim sunt qui ituri sunt?”

  
Ronan hesitated.

  
Adam answered the question for him. “Cabeswater—or where it was.”

  
Gansey hit the gas pedal and the Camaro peeled out. Loose gravel crunched underneath the tires. “Yes. Cabeswater.” There was a mournful lilt to his voice that made Ronan think about Glendower. He remembered how broken Gansey had looked after he had removed the helmet and discovered that all that remained were bones.

  
His heart squeezed inside his chest.

  
Adam reached over then and touched his knee. His forehead knitted and the freckles across his nose bunched as he frowned at Ronan.

  
“Ready?” he said.

  
Ronan looked at him. Then he took a breath and nodded.

  
“Yeah. I think so.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Comments are appreciated! The more you tell me you love it the quicker I will write updates! Chapter 3 should be up in a week or so if all goes well...


	3. If You Love Me, Come Clean

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Cabeswater is gone. Adam and Ronan take some time to talk about their feelings.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey everyone! Sorry this is up a little late... I haven't had as much time to write as I would have liked in the last week, and I wanted to be sure I was really happy with this chapter before it was posted. Enjoy! More angst and cuteness! 
> 
> Chapter title is from "If You Love Me, Come Clean" by Flatsound. 
> 
> Also a hundred thank you's to my friend, who read this over for me and advised on all the tricky stuff before it went out into the world.

The old Camaro rolled across mud and grass and stones. Gansey grasped the wheel so hard that his knuckles burned white as he leaned over to peer above the broad dashboard. He did not seem sure about where to stop the car.

The odd raven that had been shaped from white sea shells was gone.

Cabeswater was gone.

Instead a dull yellow field stretched out across the space where it had been—before Glendower was discovered and the demon tried to unmake Ronan and Blue kissed Gansey. Before her kiss killed him.

Gansey hit the brake a little too hard and the Camaro shuddered and then stalled.

Ronan watched over the back seat as Gansey tossed his key in the cup holder.

“Well.” He sighed. “I guess here is as good as any place.”

He did not sound quite normal. He did not sound quite like Gansey.

Blue pushed open her door and climbed out. Ronan could smell the damp dead grass and rotted wood because she did not close the door behind her—instead she took several steps away from the car and then paused to tilt her head back. She dropped her hands next to her sides and stood there as the breeze caught in her dark hair and pulled at the pins and clips that held it back from her face.

Henry leaned over between the front seats.

He had squeezed in beside Adam when Gansey picked him up from Litchfield House half an hour earlier—and if Ronan felt the backseat had been crowded before it was even worse now with three teenage boys and a dream girl squashed in beside one another.

He scowled and picked at a hole in his dark jeans.

“Dick?” Henry said.

It was a half formed question—but Gansey answered almost at once.

“I feel like we should get out. I just…” He stopped then and pushed open the driver side door and extracted his square frame from the old Camaro. Ronan watched as Henry scrambled over to the front seat and clambered out behind him. The door thudded shut.

“Kerah?” Opal whined.

Ronan ignored her.

He turned to look at Adam and asked the next question without words.

_What now?_

Adam hesitated and then lifted one shoulder. Ronan blinked. It was hard for him to focus like this. It was hard to focus when he was so close to Cabeswater—or so close to what _had_ been Cabeswater last week.

He had walked between the trees and heard leaves crunched beneath his feet.

He had called for Opal and almost drowned in acid to save her.

He had found his dead mother.

Ronan realized in that moment that he had still expected Cabeswater to be here.

His chest hurt.

The seat creaked as he clambered out and then stomped across the dead grass to stand next to Blue. Opal and Adam trailed behind him. Gansey let out a quiet sigh from where he stood behind Ronan—closer to where Henry and the silent Camaro waited. He heard Chainsaw let out a shriek before she flapped off toward a distant lake.

Ronan remembered an easier time when Gansey had been so determined to search underneath the muddied water for clues—for the tomb that held Glendower.

His heart throbbed and blood roared in his ears.

Adam had stopped next to him. Now he sank down to his hands and knees in the yellow grass and ducked his head like he needed to catch his breath. Ronan could see that there was hair all across his face. His knuckles shone white as he clenched his fisted hands around weeds and grass blades and dirt.

He wanted to grab Adam. Hold him.

He considered it—but Blue was quicker than he was and unabashed. She did not care about what other people would think. She stepped around Ronan and then sat down beside Adam instead. She covered one beautiful hand with her own palm and rested her head on his shoulder. Her dark hair brushed his throat as she leaned closer.

Adam made a soft noise in his throat. It could have been a sob.

It tore Ronan apart inside.

He dropped down in the grass on his other side and reached for his free hand.

Adam turned it over—let him take it. His palm was hot and damp with sweat as Ronan clutched at it. He sighed as Opal shift over to press her back to his chest. His other arm was tossed across her shoulder and she seemed to like the warm cocoon it created for her. Ronan sat and waited for Chainsaw to return from the lake—and when she did she landed hard on his shoulder and tipped her head to croak in his ear.  

It was a nice sound.

He guessed she meant to comfort him and it worked.

He closed his eyes and breathed.

 

 

 

Ronan was not sure how much time slipped past him as he sat there. Gansey and Henry stood beside the old Camaro. Blue and Opal crouched with him in the dead grass next to Adam and Chainsaw cleaned her feathers from where she sat balanced on his shoulder.

No one spoke.

Ronan waited—and then after what seemed like hours and also like seconds he heard Gansey scuff his shoes in the grass and clear his throat.

“So… where to next?” he said.

“Pizza?” Blue suggested. She looked a little like she was about to burst into tears as she stood up and brushed off her homemade skirt. Ronan made sure to jostle her with his hip as she started back to the Camaro.

She glanced over at him.

“Asshole.” But there was no real heat behind her glare or her voice and after a moment she bumped him back in retaliation. Then she crawled inside the Camaro and Ronan did too and Gansey sighed as he started the car. It rumbled and growled in resignation and shuddered like it was about to fall apart. Gansey fiddled with the air conditioner and the radio dial while the others all squeezed inside.

Ronan shifted so that Adam was pressed in next to him.

He put his hand on the closer knee and tried to make it look like an accident.

With her cheek pressed to the side window Opal let out a soft cry. It sounded mournful and lovely and terrible. It sounded like sharp thorns and soft hands and wet tears down hot cheeks. It sounded like heartbreak. It sounded like love.

It sounded like Ronan felt inside.

The Camaro pivoted in the grass and trundled away from Cabeswater—from what had been Cabeswater before—and he did not look back.

 

 

 

After the pizza and soda Gansey took Henry to Litchfield House and Blue to 300 Fox Way and then he drove back to The Barns. Opal dozed next to Ronan with her head in his lap and drool smeared on her cheek. Her stained skull cap had slipped up a little. Ronan stroked his hand across her pale forehead as she snored. Chainsaw cleaned her feathers on the other seat. Adam had called shotgun after Blue left—and now he sat with his cheek pressed to the streaked glass of the passenger window while Gansey steered the Camaro down the narrow gravel drive to the familiar farmhouse.

It was so quiet.

Ronan noticed the absence that was Blue. He also realized that he would have been glad to have to some more time without her a little earlier this year—time that he could spend with Adam and Gansey and Noah.

Then he remembered _Noah_ and his chest ached.

There was so much to miss in the world.

He shoved his door open as soon as Gansey parked and then extricated himself from the Camaro with Opal cradled in his arms. Adam bumped fists with Gansey before he climbed out too. Ronan heard his voice—low and pleasant as he said goodbye. Then Adam was back beside him. He walked past him to push open the front door.

Ronan took Opal up to her room and tucked her in underneath the heaped blankets.

He kissed her forehead before he settled the skull cap back on over her hair.

“Sweet dreams.”

He found Adam in the kitchen. He sat at the table with a coffee cup clutched in his broad tanned hands and his shoulders hunched over—but he turned around when Ronan pulled back the chair beside him and slumped down in it.

Ronan felt the smile that crept across his face.

“Uh. Hey.”

“Hey.”

Adam smiled back. Ronan tried and failed to slow his heart down a little. He dropped his gaze and watched as Adam rubbed a thumb around the cup rim. It was hard to look at his hands and not reach out to touch them.

He _had_ touched them. He had _kissed_ them.

“So…”

But then Adam hesitated.

Ronan swallowed around the sudden lump in his throat. It hurt. It was hard to breath.

“What?” he said.

But he did not need to ask. He already knew what. It had made all the time spent with Gansey and Blue and Henry that afternoon so much harder. He wanted to get this over and done with—and at the same time he wanted to avoid this conversation forever.

He could not quite believe that Adam would choose him.

He _wanted_ it—but he could not quite believe it.

Adam sipped at his coffee and then wiped his hand across his mouth.

He seemed unsure. Nervous.

Ronan wondered if his heart pounded as hard and fast as his own did.

“Adam?” he muttered—and his voice came out hoarse and raw.

“What do you want to do about this?” Adam said at once.

“You mean… about us?”

Ronan shifted in his chair. Then he jumped to his feet and strode across the kitchen.

Adam watched him fuss over the coffee machine.

“Yes.”

Ronan lifted out the pot.

He stared at the hot coffee inside. He stared at the dark stain around the rim.

“You know what I want.”

He could not lie. He did not _want_ to lie.

Adam traced his thumb around and around his coffee cup.

“What about you? What do you want to do?” Ronan countered. He tried to sound casual and unconcerned—but the bitterness slipped out before he could stop it and made the words taste like poison in his mouth.

Adam sighed. He ducked his head.

Ronan scowled at the coffee pot.

“Say it.”

“I was—”

“If you want to stop this then _tell_ me. Tell me the _truth_ and then you can leave.”

“Ronan—” But then Adam stopped and sighed.

Ronan swallowed. His chest hurt. It _burned_.

He slammed the coffee pot down on the counter.

“Has this all been one massive fucked up game to you?” he snarled.

“No! It was—”

“Did you think it was fun to watch me stumble around after you?”

“No.” Adam shook his head. His cheeks were flushed.

“Then what the fuck—”

“Shut up and listen to me for a minute!” Adam snapped.

Ronan shut up. He leaned back on the counter with his fists clenched.

Adam pushed his cup across the table. He let out his breath. “The truth is that I let you kiss me on your birthday—and then I kissed you back because I wanted to. The truth is that I am kind of fucked up and scared but I am also sure that I _still_ want to kiss you a week later. I want to kiss you almost all the time. I _think_ about you all the time. I _want_ you and it scares me so much but then it makes me think that…”

He paused then and took another breath. Ronan watched his chest move. He watched as his face burned and his beautiful hands twisted in his shirt.

“It makes you think what?” he said after Adam had been quiet for several moments.

Adam looked up at him. “It makes me think that this could be good. It makes me think that we could be good for each other… and even if we mess up and it all falls apart I think that I still I want to try and be good for you anyway.”

Ronan could not look at him—but at the same time he could not look away.

His hands shook.

He wiped them on his jeans.

“What?” Adam whispered.

Ronan swallowed. His mouth was so dry.

“I want to try too.”

Adam smiled. He still looked nervous—but it was real smile.

He moved across the kitchen and then stretched up and kissed Ronan.

It was the best kiss so far even as it was simple and sweet and after it was over Ronan had to lean back on the counter because his knees trembled. Heat rose in his face as Adam slid one hand around to his neck. His skin was warm and rough with callouses and Ronan closed his eyes at the soft touch.

“What about Sargent?” he added after a moment.

Adam pulled back his hand.

Ronan chased it and grabbed his wrist. “Come on. You said you liked her.”

Adam ducked his head. “That was months ago. But I mean… I guess I did. Before.”

The rest was implied in the silence that followed.

_Before Glendower. Before the kiss. Before Blue fell for Gansey. Before_ _Ronan._

That was a fragile moment.

It made Ronan feel untethered.

Adam ran a hand across his face and sighed. “I still like girls. But I like guys too. I guess if I think about it I always liked both and I just never realized it before now because I was too scared.”

His Henrietta drawl snaked out and spooled around his words.

Ronan nodded.

Adam touched his neck. “Does that make it weird?”

Ronan shook his head at once. “No. But it makes me glad that Blue fell for Gansey.”

Adam laughed. It was real and genuine and beautiful.

Ronan tried to remember how it sounded.

He pulled Adam close to his chest and let Adam lean his head on his shoulder.  

He could feel the heat that seeped between their bodies.

He could feel his own frantic heart and another beat that echoed it.

He closed his eyes.

“Adam.”

He breathed out the name.

Next to him Adam let out a small sigh.

“What?” he whispered back.

Ronan wrapped his arms around his waist.

He was done with words. He was done with stumbled explanations and awkward comments and partial truths. He was done with fear. Instead he stood there and held Adam and Adam held him back and for a while it was just the two of them in the quiet kitchen with coffee on their breathes and whispered promises in their hearts and a secret held between them that could have been love.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for sticking with this so far, everyone! Comments are welcome! The last chapter should be posted sometime next week if time is on my side!


	4. We Lived Through Scars

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ronan and Adam talk (and kiss). Ronan and Gansey talk (and do not kiss). To be honest this is basically all fluff and happiness. Chapter title is from "Scars" by James Bay.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is the last chapter. Thank you so much for all your comments and kudos, I would never have got this far without you!

“Is it alright… can I sleep here again tonight?” Adam said. The sun had disappeared behind distant trees and now shadows stretched thick and black across the walls in the farmhouse. There was enough room on the sofa for two people to sprawl over the faded cushions—just as long as they did not mind being very close to one another.

  
Ronan did not mind.

  
He was stretched out on his back with Adam curled beside him—his head on his chest and a hand braced loose on his hip. Hair tickled his neck. Ronan could feel his hot breath on the sensitive skin behind his ear. He was reminded inexplicably of their second kiss—how Adam had stood in the cold dark on the porch and clutched his shoulders a little too hard.

  
He had tasted sweet.

  
Ronan traced a hand down his tan arm. Adam shivered at the touch.

  
“Sure. You can sleep here.”

  
His voice almost betrayed how nervous Ronan was—how fast his heart pounded in his chest. But he was pretty certain that Adam could feel it anyway. He sat up with some reluctance. Adam copied him and then rubbed a hand across his neck.  
“I can sleep in Matthew’s old room—if you want some privacy?” he suggested.

  
Ronan heard the unspoken end to the question.

  
_If you want to dream._

  
He shook his head. “No. I like it when you—uh—I mean—” He cleared his throat and then recovered the conversation with minimal embarrassment. “You can sleep in my room.”

  
Adam smirked at him. Then he tried to hide it as he stood up.

  
Ronan decided not to talk anymore.

  
The old floorboards creaked and groaned underneath their feet as he led Adam up the stairs. He checked in on Opal to make sure that she was still asleep—and then eased open the door to his room. It was quiet here. Adam turned his back so that Ronan could pull on clean sweats and a fresh black tank in private. Ronan stared out the window and listened to cotton rustle while Adam stripped down to his boxers.

  
“Is this okay?” he said.

  
Ronan turned around. He nodded.

  
He could not quite remember how to breathe.

  
Adam scratched at a scab on his wrist and his muscles flexed. His chest was smooth and tan even in the silken dark that pooled in the room. Ronan tore his gaze away—pushed back the blankets instead. He curled up underneath them and a moment later Adam slipped in beside him.

  
For several moments he lay there on his side.

  
Ronan could see his face—shadowed in the darkness but still beautiful.

  
His heart beat fast and hard behind his ribs.

  
Adam smiled at him. Then he leaned over and kissed Ronan.

  
“Goodnight.”

  
He whispered the word close to his mouth. Ronan could taste it.

  
He let out his breath when Adam pulled back. Then—

  
“Goodnight.”

  
He whispered it back and Adam let out a quiet little sigh in his throat before he curled up next to Ronan and closed his eyes.

 

 

 

Ronan fell asleep—and when he woke up the sun was in his face. He peeled open sticky eyelids to squint around the room. It was bleached in light. The sheets and pillow were covered with delicate blue flower petals that he had pulled from his dream and Adam was still stretched out beside him.

  
He was so close that Ronan could feel his even breaths and the heat from his bare skin. He smelled like Henrietta. Like dust and cracked tarmac and tall weeds.

  
Ronan could not quite believe that this was real.

  
He wondered if he would ever believe that this was real.

  
Adam in his bed. Adam close enough to touch.

  
Adam _wanting_ him to touch.

  
Ronan let out his breath and rolled over to lie on his back.

  
He did not want to move until Adam woke up—so he tucked one hand behind his head and watched the birds that flitted past outside the window and listened to the muffled thuds from down the hall that meant Opal was up and about.

  
He was not sure if he should be supervising her.

  
She seemed to be able to look after herself most of the time.

  
It was maybe only ten minutes before Adam stirred beside him. The mattress creaked. Adam tucked some mussed brown hair behind one ear without opening his eyes. He yawned. The petals that had landed all across the blanket and his bare chest scattered when he sat up.

  
Ronan hesitated. “Um…”

  
Adam reached out and picked up a petal. His expression was curious. Then an amused smile quirked his mouth and he flicked the petal at Ronan. “Nice.” His accent, thicker this early in the morning, strung out the word.

  
“Shut up, Parrish.”

  
Adam laughed. It was an easy sound. It was a happy sound. Ronan tried not to think too much about the cartwheel that his stomach preformed when he heard it. He noticed that a petal had settled in Adam’s hair—and before he could think about it too much he reached over and plucked it out.

  
This close to Adam he could feel his warm stale breathe on his face.

  
Ronan swallowed.

  
Adam took the petal from him. Then he leaned across the space and kissed Ronan on the mouth. It was chaste and warm and nice. Ronan wanted it to last forever. He never wanted to move. He could feel the heat in his face when Adam pulled back a moment later.

  
“Good morning,” he murmured.

  
Ronan sucked in a breath. “Um. Yeah.”

  
Adam smirked at him. “I like this colour.” He twirled the petal in his hand.

  
Ronan was not quite sure that he could handle it. He had to turn his face to the side. He had to look at the blanket where it was bunched up around his knees. He wondered what Adam would say if he told him that the colour of the petals matched his eyes exactly. But then—maybe Adam had already guessed.

  
Ronan needed to think about something else. About anything else.

  
His heart crashed in his chest.

  
“Opal,” he said, a little too quickly. “I… uh… I should check on her.”

  
“Alright.” Adam gave him a lazy smile before he swung his feet over the edge of the bed. “Can I take a shower?”

  
“Yeah. Whatever.”

  
“And then… can I take the BMW to school?”

  
As much as Ronan liked the idea of Adam in the driver seat of his car, one hand wrapped around the wheel and the other on the knob of the stick shift, he shook his head. “I can drive you. I’m not going to school—but I can take you there. I have to pick up some stuff in town. Food. Maybe some clothes for Opal.”

  
Adam nodded. “Sure. Um. Thanks.”

  
He hesitated. Then he leaned back over and kissed Ronan for the second time.

  
He smiled.

  
“I’ll see you downstairs.”

 

 

 

Ronan pulled in to park behind the old Camaro. The BMW shuddered in neutral and the gear stick knocked frantic and alive in his hand. The car was as desperate as Ronan was to be on the road and over the speed limit—so he yanked out the key and tossed it in the cup holder for later.

  
He reached back to run a hand across his shaved head.

  
“Parrish.”

  
Adam looked over at him. His mouth twitched.

  
“Sure you want to skip?” he said.

  
Ronan bared his teeth in a brutal smile. “Yeah.” He did not ask Adam to skip with him because he knew what the answer would be. Adam Parrish had a plan. He went to school so that he could get in to a good college and he went to work so that he could afford a good college and he wanted to go to college so that he could land a successful carrier.

  
No one would ever be able to alter that plan.

  
Not even Ronan.

  
Opal leaned over from the back seat to kiss Adam on the cheek. Adam laughed in surprise and turned around to smooth some blonde hair back from her face.

  
“Be good. See you later.”

  
He kissed her nose.

  
Opal beamed at him.

  
Ronan tried to push away the small ache in his chest as Adam snatched at his school stuff and then climbed out. His shoes scuffed on the old cracked cement in the lot. The Camaro was still and quiet beside the BMW—which Ronan took to mean that Gansey had headed inside the school earlier.

  
He leaned across the car to talk to Adam.

  
“Hey. Can I pick you up after work?”

  
He did not want too sound hopeful—but his voice betrayed him.

  
Adam paused and then smiled. “Yeah. Alright.”

  
He hovered beside the open door. Ronan wondered if he wanted to kiss him. He knew that he wanted to kiss Adam even if the BMW was parked in a packed lot outside the school he hated while students that milled around in the courtyard not ten feet from them.

  
He braced his hand on the door handle.

  
He could pull it shut or Adam could push it shut or—

  
His mind whirled. His heart pounded. Then the door creaked and shoes scuffled on cracked cement and Adam leaned back inside the car. His face was red and there was a nervous tilt to his mouth. He kissed Ronan.

  
He tasted like mint toothpaste and coffee.

  
He tasted like Adam.

  
Opal made a irritated noise from the backseat as the kiss ended.

  
“Kerah!” she said. And then she added: “Gross.”

  
Ronan took a breath. He took another.

  
The air was cool and sweet and he had Adam and he did not have to sit in class.

  
He smiled and it was not at all brutal.

  
“Parrish.”

  
Adam ducked his head. His face was still a little bit red.

  
“Lynch. I’ll see you tonight.”

  
He slammed the door.

 

 

 

Monmouth looked the same and smelled the same—but it did not quite feel the same. Ronan waited with his arms crossed over his chest while Gansey unlocked the door to the apartment on the second floor. There was a shallow click as the latch snapped back. Gansey set his shoulder to the door and heaved it open.

  
“Home sweet home.”

  
His voice was a little mournful as he stepped inside.

  
Opal and Ronan trailed in behind him. Sun splashed across the floorboards and the armchair and the miniature Henrietta. Opal let out an excited shriek before she darted over to the little cardboard houses. Her hooves thudded with each step she took.

  
Gansey looked at Ronan.

  
“How is she?” he muttered.

  
Ronan lifted one shoulder. “Fine. She eats sticks and grass more than food but…” He hesitated. He was not sure how to say what he wanted to say. That since Opal came from his head he was not sure that she even needed to eat. That since she had come from his head he was not sure if she needed more than affection and love and someone to whisper Latin in her ear as the sun went down.

  
Gansey sank down to sit on his mattress.

  
He seemed uncertain. Nervous.

  
“So… you and Parrish?” he said after a moment.

  
Ronan looked down at the floor. His face flushed with heat.

  
“Uh. Yeah. I guess.”

  
“When did that happen?” Gansey asked.

  
“What?”

  
“I mean… I had no idea that you even liked him. Adam told me… well… he told me that you kissed him on your birthday and I guess I was less surprised about it than I could have been. But still.” Gansey hesitated. His face was red when Ronan looked at him.

  
“Adam told you that I kissed him?” he said.

  
His voice sounded hoarse.

  
Gansey nodded. “Well. Yes.”

  
“Oh.” Ronan scuffed his sneakers on the floor. He looked over at Opal. She was occupied with the miniature Henrietta and did not seem to have any idea where the conversation was headed either.

  
Gansey leaned his elbows on his knees.

  
“So you really like him?” he said.

  
“I like him.”

  
“And I think that he likes you.”

  
“Yeah.” Ronan let out his breath. “Me too.”

  
He could not quite trap the smile behind his teeth. Gansey raised one eyebrow.

  
“What about you and Sargent?” Ronan snapped at him—eager to steer the discussion away from whatever he and Adam were at the moment. He was pleased to see that Gansey looked a little bit uncomfortable.

  
“Blue and I… we… uh…”

  
“Have you kissed her?” Ronan prodded.

  
Gansey looked surprised at the question. “Um. No. Not yet. At least not since…”

  
He stopped. Ronan tried not to think about how his stomach lurched when he remembered the last kiss. Gansey dead in the road. The rain spattered across his face and muddied sweater. The demon inside him—in his head.

  
“But you like her.”

  
It was not a question. He knew the truth.

  
Gansey nodded. “I love her.”

  
The word love made Ronan want to squirm a little bit where he stood.

  
He watched as Opal crawled down Main Street on her hands and knees and then started when Gansey let out a sudden laugh. He turned back to look at him. Gansey reached up to push hair behind one ear and then met his gaze.

  
“Can you believe that I am still alive?” he said. His voice was wild and happy. This was the Gansey that Ronan remembered from before Niall Lynch had died. He stood up from the bed and strode over to Ronan and then waved his arm around the room. “I mean… can you believe this is all still here after all the shit that happened to us? Blue and Noah and the demon? Whelk? Jesus Christ… it feels like years since that whole Cabeswater mess started.”

  
Ronan crossed his arms.

  
“Yeah.”

  
The truth was that he could not quite believe that it had all happened to him.

  
He was a different person now. Cabeswater had made him someone else and then summer had ruined him and rebuilt him and the demon had come and torn him in pieces. Ronan could still feel the cracks when he breathed—but at least the wounds seemed to hurt a little less.

  
It was over. He would make it.

  
He turned and smiled at Gansey.

  
It was a real smile—not a snake smile—because Ronan Lynch was not a snake.

  
He was a dreamer and he was in love and he was alive.

  
They were all alive.

  
It was going to be okay.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A huge thank you to everyone to made it this far! I live for all your lovely comments and kudos!

**Author's Note:**

> I have some ideas for a continuation or two that will also be very Ronan-centric and involve even more angst. Let me know if you are interested! I will (probably) post updates if people want to read more!


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